Visit of the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS)

Dr. Maria Grazia Giuffreda, associate director. giving a presentation of the center.
Dr. Maria Grazia Giuffreda, associate director. giving a presentation of the center.
Participants visiting the computers room
Participants visiting the computers room
Participants visiting the computers room
Participants visiting the computers room

Institutional Communication Service

24 October 2022

Prof. Olaf Schenk and the Institute of Computing (CI) had the pleasure to invite a group of 80 bachelor's and master's students from USI and ETHZ to visit the Swiss National Supercomputing Center in Lugano-Cornaredo on 12 October.

The students were welcomed by Dr Maria Grazia Giuffreda, associate director, who gave a presentation of the centre prior to the visit. She gave an overview of some of the 153 projects carried out last year with the help of the CSCS supercomputers. After this introduction, Sebin John, student of the USI Master in Software and Data Engineering, filled the audience with his enthusiasm and shared his experience as a research intern at CSCS where he developed distributed visualisation software in Julia. The students were all hears when Timothy Holt, PhD candidate in high-performance computing, gave a speech on how supercomputing can help with the European energy crisis.

The group was then led into the spacious computer centre facility where they were able to approach supercomputers such as Piz Daint, once the most powerful machine in Europe, or the ultramodern Alps. The participants also gained insight into the impressive technical infrastructure essential for water-cooling the supercomputers. The many questions and discussions between the participants and the staff continued over coffee in a relaxed atmosphere.